Dying
of the Light by
George RR Martin
(Gollancz, £6.99, 365 pages, paperback; first published 1977; this
edition December 4 2000.)

I haven't had time to sit down and read a fiction book for months,
so I picked up George R.R. Martin's Dying of the Light with a
sense of anticipation. I had heard rumours that Martin was a "good"
author
(I am embarrassed to admit that I haven't read him all these years;
the book was originally issued in 1977), so I was expecting a competently
written story, but I also discovered that Martin writes with a poet's
ear for sound and an artist's eye for description. Here's one visual
image that haunts the book:

Dirk t'Larien looked up and saw a low black barge drift slowly past
in the moonlight. A solitary figure stood in the stern, leaning on
a thin dark pole. Everything was etched quite clearly, for Braque's
moon was riding overhead, big as a fist and very bright.

The plot begins in straightforward manner: Dirk t'Larien, living on
Braque and doing nothing in particular, receives from his old love,
Gwen Delvano, a jewel that he gave her many years before. The jewel
is a sign that he is to come to her, possibly to renew their love affair.
He learns that she is working as an ecologist on the planet Worlorn,
and takes a transport there. Worlorn, a wandering rogue planet on the
Galaxy's rim, was the site of a great Festival when the planet's path
carried it near enough to a star system to warm the planet to livability;
a Festival that showcased the cities and technology of a dozen nearby
worlds. Now the planet is receding from the star system, doomed to perpetual
winter and the eternal night of interstellar space. The displays and
cities built for the Festival are closed and abandoned, and only a few
scientists and misfits remain.

Dirk disembarks into this inhospitable setting to find that his Gwen
is aloof and polite, not delighted to see him, and she has brought a
co-worker along with her for their lovers' reunion. Worse still, he
discovers that she has married during the years they have been separated,
and apparently her invitation to him was for her to cut final ties with
him in a neat and tidy manner. But hours later Dirk discovers that her
marriage is an unhappy one, the jewel might be a cry for help from her
to be rescued, and that perhaps she still loves him after all. Things
are further complicated by the fact that some members of the tribal/ethnic
group she married into, the Kavalar, have taken up illegally hunting
other human inhabitants of Worlorn for sport. There is friction bordering
on open warfare between the different factions of the Kavalar, and Dirk
becomes the catalyst for events that spiral out of control.

Every twist in the plot is a logical extension of the personalities
involved, every frailty and poor decision based on each character's
strengths and weaknesses. Martin shows how culture can be both a prison
and a source of strength, how each person's worldview blinds them to
the worldviews of others, how heroes and villains are sometimes interchangeable.
The history of the Kavalar, so central to the plot, is presented smoothly
in dialogue and not in huge expository chunks; the magnificent setting
of Worlorn blends with the mood of the characters without being obtrusive,
and, while this is no cheery space opera, it is an ultimately satisfying
story. In tone it reminded me more of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest
than of most sf books.

As a final note, Dying of the Light has an excellent Jim Burns
cover -- poorly framed and cropped, but still accurately showing the
planet and the aircar described in the text, and capturing some of the
magic of the book's setting.

For a book written in 1977, Dying of the Light hasn't the slightest
air of being outdated. I'm looking forward to reading more of Martin's
books -- I have some catching up to do.